Children with an extraordinarily developed mind can sometimes exhibit behaviors that seem abnormal to others. This may become a cause of bullying and eventually harm the psycho-social development of such a child. Fitting into the world often begins with the family. The acknowledgment of the fact of a child’s talent is the first step towards understanding his or her needs. Monitoring and observation of behaviors should provide an insight into how to adjust those of them that may seem abnormal. The understanding of social mechanisms that are often exhibited by gifted children does not mean the same level of emotional development as this side can rarely be perceived by the mind alone. Therefore, parents should pay closer attention to the emotional side of the relationships with peers. Controlling and exhibiting emotions should become the subject of a non-invasive education intervention administered by parents.
Parents may also take it upon themselves to collaborate with teachers in order to make inquiries into the quality of social connections between their gifted child and his or her peers. That could indicate an area for intervention. For instance, the lack of positive popularity that is often connected with being ‘different’ could result in not knowing how to properly engage in conversation, start and stop an activity, agree or disagree with others. All of those or some of those issues need to become a topic of home discussion. However, an invasive and persistent desire to help can have a negative effect on the parent-child relationship. Therefore, as it was already stated above, gentle and cautious corrective and educative interventions together with close monitoring and observation could help the genius child become a strong individual with well-developed social skills.
Reference
Isaacs, B. (2018). Understanding the Montessori approach: Early years education in practice (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge.